


Ten Things You Need to Know

by aidennestorm



Series: To Say Goodbye [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Depression, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 06:24:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17401691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aidennestorm/pseuds/aidennestorm
Summary: In which there are no happy endings, but Washington survives anyway.





	Ten Things You Need to Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamlittleyo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/gifts).



_(number one)_

Burr gives Washington the medication an hour after he awakens.

“You need to take this once a day for the foreseeable future,” Burr instructs, voice stern under the sympathy— the pity— etched into every line of his face. “Broken mating bonds can be mentally debilitating for the partner left behind. This is an order from your CMO and not a suggestion, Captain.”

Washington nods mutely, numbly, and doesn’t protest the hypo Burr sticks in his neck… or the next day’s dose, or the next. It’s a full month before he’s deemed stable enough to be responsible for his own medication adherence— a full month before he realizes that the aching void that used to hold Alexander’s brilliance isn’t healed. It’s just… _gone._ Like his boy never existed.

He shoves the hypo in the bottom of his desk drawer and never looks at it again.

 

_(number two)_

Washington carries out the remainder of their five year mission.

It’s another agonizing year left, nearly half of it spent in inquiries about his fitness to lead. While he waits for Command to make their final decision, he leads the crew on easier missions, safer ones. He was never needlessly reckless before, but they all accepted the inherent dangers of space exploration.

Now, he'll be damned if anyone else has to lose someone they love.

They go on patrols in the heart of the Federation, far away from contested borders. Supply runs to stable planets. Routine scientific missions. Despite that this is far from what they expected when they joined Starfleet’s flagship— what _used_ to be their flagship— the crew’s behavior never changes. They are efficient, and dedicated, and still proud to be serving on the _Nelson._

Still proud of _him._

His gratitude is the first positive emotion he has since Alexander’s death, and when he tears up during his farewell speech to the crew before they all disembark on Earth, their five years finally, blessedly over, no one comments upon it.

 

_(number three)_

He rents an apartment about half an hour away from Starfleet Headquarters.

It’s on the edge of the city. A little bungalow off the bay and the beaten path. Quiet and peaceful, no sign of the vibrant life of San Francisco except on the horizon.

Alexander would have hated it.

 

_(number four)_

He starts teaching at the Academy the next semester. It’s all upper level command courses, studious, rigorous coursework that keeps him busy and occupied. His nights are filled with revisions and reviews and too much work to dwell too deeply on anything else.

It goes well— as well as anything _can,_ anymore— until two months in, when he’s lecturing on command propriety, the balance of maintaining personal relationships with the people under one’s command. As long as he thinks of Gil, of Angelica, the rest of his crewmates that are scattered halfway across the galaxy by now, he can manage.

It’s not until one of the cadets raises their hand and asks, “What about partner relationships on a starship?” that Washington freezes. The severed bond throbs and he fumbles through an incomplete, inadequate response, then releases class early. Doesn’t care if it makes him seem an incompetent instructor, or if word will get back to the department chair and he should start expecting a reprimand. 

He _doesn’t care._

He sits down once he thinks the room is empty, picking up a datapad full of essays he already knows he won’t be able to focus on, when a throat clears. He glances up, and the cadet with the question is standing before him, pity and regret in their eyes. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know.”

Washington waves a dismissive hand. It’s all he can do.

“Consider it forgotten, Cadet. Go enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”

When the door finally shuts behind the cadet’s retreating back, Washington stares at the wall opposite his desk for a very long time.

 

_(five)_

Both his dreams and his nightmares leave him shaken and sleepless.

In his dreams he’s got Alexander beneath him, naked and hair splayed across the pillow, purpling bruises on his neck, legs wrapped around Washington’s waist that grab tighter with every roll of his hips.

“George,” Alexander gasps, _“fuck—”_

Washington feels his mate’s pleasure soar through their bond, heady and intoxicating, driving his thrusts harder—

He wakes up hard, and counts the textured bumps on the ceiling until his body eventually drags him back into unconsciousness, or the alarm goes off.

The nightmares are a vivid replay of that damnable day, down to the detail— Alexander’s shouts and whimpers of pain. The smell of his charred flesh. The mottled poison creeping up his throat. “You promised me,” Alexander rasps, and Washington wakes with tears in his eyes.

But, the worst—

The worst is when he’s touching Alexander, his boy writhing and beautiful beneath him, and then Alexander gasps, a sound of pleasure so intense it’s nearly painful— but it _is_ pain, and when Washington pulls his hand away, it’s sticky with blood, the bruises on Alexander's neck turning black and webbing across his skin.

He barely makes it to the toilet before he vomits.

 

_(six)_

He never dates, ever again.

He doesn’t find a quick fuck, even. He knows, possessive as his boy is— _was—_ Alexander would want him to stop being so reticent. Would encourage him to take more chances, _live._

For that matter, Washington barely speaks to his friends. Most of it is circumstance; Command has them all spread out and it’s difficult for communications to traverse the barriers of distance and duty. 

But no small part of it is due to his own self-imposed isolation. He leaves messages unread. Doesn’t answer when his comm notifies him of an incoming call.

He has nothing to say because nothing has changed. He starts his day with too little sleep, gives himself a stimulant to get through his classes. Mechanically eats a meal or two that tastes like ash, and comes home, and grades papers, and absently rubs at his forehead, as if he could possibly assuage the pounding ache. Tries and fails to fall asleep to the sounds of seagulls on the bay.

He doesn’t have time for anything else.

 

_(seven)_

It takes yet another year after Alexander’s death before he simply _can’t,_ anymore. Two years gone before the echo in his head is too much, and he’s so, so exhausted, and with every breath he yearns to see his boy again.

It’s not even a conscious effort or a moment of decision. One minute he is sitting at the desk in his personal study, and the next he is pulling out the phaser Command should have never let him keep.

 _You’re lucky,_ the physicians tell him afterward. _The phaser jammed and you were only temporarily paralyzed, instead of killed._

He doesn’t feel lucky. It’s just another way he’s failed, again.

At some point, he opens his eyes to Gil’s face. He expects rage, and shouting, and wrath, and noise. Instead, he gets heartbreak. Sorrow. Guilt.

“When did you stop taking your medication?”

“A couple years ago,” Washington confesses, hoarse. Gil sighs, heavy and without any surprise.

“There’s a reason why it’s prescribed for mental strain like yours. You can go insane if it’s not treated. I _know_ Burr told you that.”

Washington looks down at the bed, and says nothing.

“This isn’t what Alexander would have wanted.”

“I know.” Washington’s eyes sting, and he tries to choke back the tears clogging his throat. “I wasn’t trying to break my promise.”

Gil doesn’t ask what he means by _promise_ and Washington doesn’t offer— no one could possibly understand the depth of what he and Alexander are— _were—_ to each other— but he still puts a steadying hand on Washington’s arm. “We’ll get you better but you have to _try,_ George.”

Washington agrees, quiet, “For Alexander.”

It’s the only motivation he can offer.

 

_(number eight)_

He restarts the medication, monitored by a physician on campus.

He calls Burr for guidance when the side effects get nearly unbearable again. Gil when he needs to escape the chasm of his own head.

It gets easier, but he doesn’t feel better.

 

_(number nine)_

He lives another five years without his boy, and it’s too much.

 

_(number ten)_

Washington resigns his teaching position. Readies his affairs. He lets the lease on his home lapse, and puts his non-essential belongings in long-term storage.

He tells Gil and Burr, or anyone else who cares enough anymore to ask, none of this.

He leaves Earth amidst a San Francisco sunrise, chartering a passenger transport to the farthest Federation planet he can manage. From there, he spends every last bit of his savings on purchasing his own shuttlecraft, spaceworthy enough to get him where he needs to be.

Where he should have stayed, years ago.

The planet, bright blue through his viewscreen, looks unchanged. The same buoy left by the _Nelson,_ warning ships away from the death waiting below. He enters the coordinates solely from memory, and lands his shuttle at the same end of the complex he and the landing party— all save one— emerged from.

It’s silent and still on the surface. He’s quiet as he heads underground, relying on his scanner readings to help him retrace a path obscured by endless pain. There’s no sign of the drones, here— no indication that they broke through the barrier that saved his life.

He knows he’s at the right place when he sees them: rusted handprints on what looks like a wall, from this outer corridor. He sways, a little, but steadies himself and pulls on what he knows to be a panel with trembling hands. It takes some effort, but he finally works it open, and doesn’t bother sealing it behind him when he steps into the room—

Into the room where Alexander protected him. Where his boy took his final breaths, _died_ for him. 

It’s empty, save for the mate he was forced to leave behind, the decay in the air long dissipated. Even if Washington tried to look away, wanted to, he couldn’t. It’s been _years,_ and this— this _skeleton,_ with an oxidized gun and a stained Starfleet uniform, and layers of dust from a system gone dormant again over all that… it’s still _him._

“I tried,” he whispers, kneeling beside all that’s left of Alexander, like his mate can hear him.

He wants to stay. _Plans_ to stay. To sit, and close his eyes, and let oblivion take him. To see his mate smile again, to hold him again, to finally _live_ again, in whatever afterlife he might be granted.

But...

_You promised me._

Washington shakes his head, resigned, feeling every one of his years. Feeling old, and worn, and still as much in love with Alexander as he was from the first time they shook hands over a transporter pad. 

Still as helpless against Alexander’s most adamant desires.

He huffs something like an aching, rasping laugh, and stands. “I’m not leaving you here this time, Alexander. Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> MANY THANKS to dreamlittleyo for doing my original prompt amazing, awful justice-- and creating a world I just couldn't leave alone. Washington had more to say, and I am happy to have been the vessel, this time. Thanks for supporting me in continuing this beautiful madness. :)
> 
> Come check out the @whamilton community on dreamwidth and help our ship grow over there, and you can find my new fandom home @aidennestorm on dreamwidth as well!


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